Burning Down the House

"If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It's a conflict between what's practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question." 

via TheBurningHouse

Name: Karina
Age: 22
Location: Los Angeles
Occupation: Student
List:

• My favorite purse
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Marie Rilke
• Journal
• Bible given to me by my parents
• Cell phone
• Tiffany's ring from my Confirmation & my Grandmother's ring
• Necklace from my Mom, with a larimar stone I carved in the Dominican Republic
• Letters & cards from friends & family
• Kindle
• Fossil wallet
• Ray Bans
• Apartment & car keys

Review: This American Life

The nationally syndicated radio program, This American Life, takes the idea that everyone has a story and uses these narrative threads to illuminate American culture at large.  Its weekly broadcasts reach two million people via more than 500 radio stations from its small Chicago studio. Ira Glass, the program’s current host, began hosting the show in 1995 and since then, it's gone on to win a variety of awards. This American Life even branched out to reach new audiences during a two-year stint on television.

Each week, the program presents a theme. These themes--about home, work, family, love, faith--are explored in several acts, usually beginning with a very short anecdote as a prologue. Though This American Life celebrates the ordinary, the program’s narrative motion relies on direction and meaning. Contributors don't just tell their stories, they reflect but on what they meant and how they affected their lives. For instance, Sara’s story ‘Putting the Cart Before the Porsche’ involves an affluent childhood that was based on a corrupt financial move. But she incorporates not only her youthful take on her parents’ empty morals and haughty attitudes but also the perspective she has today. Even in stories involving more investigative journalism, the reporting staff member offers commentary and reflection  as in ‘Deep Dark Open Secret,' which features an interview with an American soldier named Adam. He and a producer, Sarah Koenig, had a somber discussion on the effects of going to war after they had corresponded while he was serving. 

This structure--anecdote and reflection--helps channel the sense of purpose Glass and his staff want to maintain in their broadcasts. Plus, it adds to the show's credibility: people tell their stories in their own words and voices--we hear their intonation, laughter, or hesitation as if they were speaking directly to us. All that, combined with Glass’s own famous voice, gives This American Life a comforting level of intimacy. It reminds me of when my parents used to listen to Garrison Keillor’s program A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor’s voice added warmth to the already familiar coziness of the more fictionalized skits and monologues in his program.

This American Life is often criticized for its whitewashed portrayal of the average American. However, without further information on the demographics of the program’s listeners and contributors, it is difficult to say whether this is a serious negative. Participants often only share their first names, without providing more context.The point is that we all have stories, no matter who we are, and that any and all of them contributes to the big picture of American life. 

I don’t often listen to radio and when I do, I'm usually tuned to the local top 40’s station. However, thanks to This American Life, I've discovered another kind of listening experience. Some stories, like ‘Except for That One Thing’ where a couple found a too-good-to-be-true deal on furniture, were downright funny (Here's the prologue). ‘Deep Dark Open Secret’ was thought-provoking but I think the one that most moved me so far has been ‘Little War on the Prairie’ in which a native Minnesotan finally learns about the events in 1862 (major disputes between white settlers and the Dakota that led to a mass execution) and tries to come to terms with the effects of his city’s silence on its history.

What I like the most about This American Life is the balance between casual and crafted storytelling. Glass and his staff never talk down to their listeners. Their reflections, as well as those of the contributing storytellers, remain conversational. It is a style I am aiming to replicate in my own work. The program’s critical success is a confirmation that personal narrative, quirky and serious, funny and tragic, can be achieved in this manner. I believe this aspect of the program’s direction is what sets This American Life apart from others. I highly recommend the program for its ability to touch and inspire the listener to consider our shared experience.

The Sleepover

“Button, button, who’s got the button?”

My Great-Grandma Deloris Karels repeated this simple phrase as my cousin, sister, and I slowly walked her living room searching for that button. All she did was hide one somewhere and yet, we were so excited to find it.

“Maren is getting colder. Oh, Mackenzie is getting very hot!”

There was no special prize for finding the button and as it was only the four of us in Grandma K’s apartment, there was no audience to applaud our triumphs. Sometimes the winner was allowed to hide the button next, but the three of us usually let Grandma K hide it again. While she did, we would wait in her powdery perfumed bedroom. My sister couldn’t contain her excitement from the suspense and would bury her face in the bed. My cousin and I liked to look at all the old pictures that were stuck in the vanity mirror above Grandma’s silver backed hairbrush, comb, and mirror set.

When Button, Button finally lost its charm, Grandma K had many more old-fashioned games to entice us. She was always fond of games. Three other elderly ladies lived in the building and they all often met Grandma K for a game of cards. Naturally, we had already played a few games of Go Fish and Old Maid. Caffeine from the coffee Grandma K had let us have—or should I say creamer and sugar with a splash of coffee—pulsed through us late into the night. My cousin, sister, and I were meant to be having a special sleepover at Grandma K’s apartment, but it seemed more like we were being encouraged to test our limits without the supervision of our parents.

The caffeine made us all the more eager to try more of Grandma K’s games. We moved on to Clothespin Drop, which is exactly like what it sounds. Each of us took a turn during a round in which we tried to drop old clothespins into a large mason jar from varying heights. First we knelt on a chair and then later we stood on it to make aiming more difficult. I don’t remember who was better that night, but I do remember how much fun the games were.

Once we finally started to tucker out, Grandma K played on her air organ—or did she play some harmonica? She was very musically talented and could play equally well on both instruments. We didn’t want the night to end, but it had to. The three of us squeezed into the big bed in Grandma K’s spare room and quickly fell asleep, dreaming of our somewhat rebellious night, one of the best sleepovers we had all had.

At Grandma K's apartment, 2001.
Me, Grandma K, William, Mom, Maren

A Bit of Earth

Mary in the garden.
Image courtesy of mickiemuellerart

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“To plant seeds in–to make things grow–to see them come alive,” Mary faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

“Do you–care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”

--From The Secret Garden, Chapter XII, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mary, Dickon, & Colin.
Image courtesy of studentfashionblog

At our old house in Arizona, my sister and I would sometimes play in the entryway courtyard. It was the most random place—a small square of plant life off to the side of the eight-foot walkway to our front door. To get to it, someone would have to enter the wrought iron gate from outside or from inside through the front door. Now that I think about it, it was our own little “secret” green space. 

But what I wanted, what I was enamored of ever since my Dad read the book to me, was a garden like Mary's in The Secret Garden, sprawling, behind a high wall where I could retreat or share in adventures with friends like Dickon and Colin. 

Living in Arizona, though, I was surrounded by the varying browns and reds of the desert, the sand and rocks, sturdy but thin and rough trees with tiny short leaves and of course, a multitude of cactus species.  I mean, it lacks so much true “greenery” that when my family visited Orlando, Florida while my sister and I were in late elementary school, my sister exclaimed “It’s so green here!” as we descended into our landing pattern. The old people seated around us thought she was hilarious. Then I moved to Los Angeles for undergraduate school and there was even less green. I look out my apartment window to the Astroturf in the courtyard below. If I’m on the rooftop, the only unpaved land I see with palm trees and short grasses and weeds are along the sidewalks or the 110 underpass. Of course, just across the street lies the most greenery around: on USC’s campus, with the major exception of properties that lie in the Exposition Park corridor on the other side of campus.

I think this continual lack of greenery drove me to make sure my college apartments always had living color in them. My penchant for weekly Starbucks couldn’t compete with the cheer brought by a bimonthly purchase of a cheap grocery store bouquet. With the right amount of water mixtures and stem trimmings, I managed to keep the bouquets looking beautiful for a couple weeks at a time. When hardier blossoms, like roses, were in the mix, I would sometimes hang them upside down like an old apothecary might to dry them out and later use them in a longer lasting display.

In preparation for college life, one of my roommates, Katherine, bought a plant from Ikea. She thought it was fake her entire freshman year. It was a hardy tropical succulent—named Melvin—but all the same, it needed some TLC by our sophomore year. Somehow I became its guardian. Once we made our final move junior year to the place we live now, we invested in a lavender plant, another succulent, and the small cactus sampler my roommate had inherited from a fellow intern over the summer. That was a surprising challenge. The cacti sampler was one of those souvenir dishes you can buy at a grocery store. They are everywhere in Arizona. It was dying and I discovered the soil was covered in a layer of gravel hot glued together. The “soil” underneath was dusty and full of Styrofoam pieces from who knows where. But with a little trial and error and determination, I saved the sampler but eventually created a monster. While all the cacti thrived under the extra attention, one did more than the others. It was like the plant from Little Shop of Horrors. Over the next month, it became stronger while the others shriveled up and died, one by one. Each time I carefully removed a dead one and righted the rest of the sampler, I imagined the cactus yelling, “Feed me Seymour!” One morning, I found the cactus collapsed, snapped right at its base. I had stopped watering it about a month prior when I thought it was reserving too much water in itself after sucking the life from the others. It was over indulged; too fat and heavy for its shallow dish and thus its own good. I imagine it died of happiness.  

The cacti sampler was a strange phase and although the lavender quickly died due to lack of proper light, the new succulent (officially belonging to another roommate, Keiko) flourished alongside Melvin, the tropical plant. When Keiko moved out this past semester, she took her nearly one foot tall succulent with her. Melvin, is still thriving and more lush than ever. But my pride and joy lies in the red glazed terracotta pot on the window ledge.

Wall-E, the tiny lemon tree.

One of the ways I occupied myself while I lived in L.A. over the summer, without my roommates around to distract me, was to attempt to grow a plant from a seed. I did it on a whim one night while making pasta, and soaked the seeds from the lemon I was zesting in a mug of water. A day later, I prepared the seeds according to a nursery website in a small jam jar with leftover soil from the dead lavender plant’s tin bucket that I am so glad I kept. I covered it with plastic wrap to create a miniature green house effect and waited. To my surprise and extreme delight hardly a week later, one of the seeds had sprouted and was just poking up through the soil. I was so proud of myself!

I transplanted the growing sprout from the jam jar to a small vase and nursed it all summer and even ventured to the closest Home Depot to pick up more potting soil and a larger container, one meant for plants this time. I went back and forth between the sky blue and burnished red glazed pots, settling on the latter. I found the process of raising the plant from its humble beginnings to be extremely exciting--I still do! My lemon tree has even been christened Wall-E, for the Disney/Pixar robot by my roommate, Selby. To her, my lemon tree represents the hope of the tiny plant in that movie which serendipitously sprouted in a world dominated by trash.

Wall-E and the plant.
Courtesy of Disney Blogs

Can a green thumb and predilection for nature run in the family? I think it must--not only do I come from a family of farmers, but also a long line of people who tend smaller vegetable garden patches and flower beds. I will always remember late autumns at our house in Rochester, Minnesota, when my parents, especially my Dad, would be working hard to cover the flower beds with Styrofoam buckets to preserve the marigolds and roses throughout the winter. At their old house, my grandparents had several huge plots of flowers and vegetables. I always enjoyed the scent of earthy soil on the air when I would play outside. Even at their townhouse, they continue to grow vegetables in a patch right outside the backdoor, which are always so fresh and delicious.

I have attempted to include the basil plants that are sold downstairs at the Fresh and Easy Express in our windowsill garden. I can usually make them last for a couple of months before they deteriorate from the lack of proper sunlight in our inward-facing apartment. That has been a satisfying project. On Saturday mornings, I love to pluck a few of the basil leaves and add them to an omelet. If I could, I would have my own small garden to tend and have the ability to harvest the fruits of my labor, quite literally. But the ultimate dream is still to surround myself with greenery and flowering plants, perhaps in a sprawling English style garden to laze away my afternoons in.

Scenes of Summer

I smile at the smell of freshly cut grass and soil in the air. I am instantly transported back to Minnesota. In my imagination, the grass is thick and green, a lush carpet beneath my toes; not spotty yellow patches that are scorched under the Arizona sun or dying of thirst in the California drought. But the smell I'm thinking of--USC Facilities Management didn’t put that scent on the air. It was my Dad and his small gas-powered lawn mower. It was always him versus the dandelions, though I never understood why they need to go when the marigolds and roses are so well tended.

In a moment, I can be back on that lawn, kneeling in my blue Sleeping Beauty nightgown, trying to perfect the quintessential princess pose. There's my tree swing—before my cousin broke the branch—and the many fallen crabapples from the trees that line the chain-link fence. I climb the bright red porch in Rochester to sit on the striped lounge. I like to sit here. The puffy plastic fabric feels cool in the humidity. I study the nest where we can usually watch the baby birds call for their mom. I taste freshly shucked sweet corn.

More scenes from summer: My sister and I are covered in chalk. I can smell the powdery substance on my forearms. But we are never close to being done. She races our Fisher Price Cozy Coupe down the colorfully doodled “street” in a manner and speed that would have impressed the Flintstones. Our feet are dull grey by this time--a combination of too many colors (and dirt) after walking the chalked rooms of our dream homes and hopscotch halls. But we've finally connected our half of the street mural to the neighbor's, Rachel, my friend who is my age. Tomorrow, we plan to expand even further. Covered in color and designs, the entire neighborhood is a child-artists' colony, rivaled in décor only by the striking kolams of Indian festivals.

And more: I'm back in Lester Prairie where my brother, sister, and I run and play barefoot in the grass, retrieving all manner of summer toys from the musty wooden tool shed. I take a long time to pick out the next activity just because I like to stand inside the shed and breathe its earthy air. I return with hula-hoops and another onset of itches from fresh mosquito bites. But we end up playing a game that involves weaving though the clean towels and sheets on the line as they flap in the breeze. If only detergent bottles could really trap that scent. Purist that I am, I’m always left disappointed in my apartment laundry room.

When we become tired, we flop down on our backs to watch the clouds roll overhead. The mellow tones of the various wind chimes are soon overwhelmed by the sounds of conversation. The rest of the family has arrived. I smell citronella candles and calamine lotion. The sickly pink-purple of Benadryl slides down my throat and coats my tongue in a furry sort of way. But I’ll do anything to reduce the swelling of those mosquito bites. “It’s because you’re sweet” doesn’t make me feel better. But the summer snack assortment does. I return for slice after slice of summer sausage, handfuls of Old Dutch Dill Pickle flavored chips, and especially to the tins of sweet and dense O’Henry bars.

I could simply call my mom for the O'Henry Bars recipe and mix up a batch in my Los Angeles apartment. But would it really taste like summer in Minnesota? Not a chance.

The Minnesota Pickle

My sister, Maren, and I eating pickles in our Arizona home.

Ask anyone what my favorite food is, and they probably will answer with pickles. The other probable answer is chocolate, but that’s a tale for another time. There is never a shortage of pickles at my house or a family gathering. Whether it’s Christmas dinner, a smaller meal or appetizers that are pulled out while socializing, pickles always make an appearance in the nostalgic crystal pickle serving dishes. In more casual moments at my house, when we can’t wait to satisfy our pickle craving, we eat pickles right out of the jar. All you need is a fork to spear your chosen pickle to have the perfect snack.

During my brief stint in a sorority, my shortened pledge name became “pickles”. Due to the food’s unusual place in my heart, at our retreat, I had had to improvise a children’s story about a little pickle lady whose pickles had been eaten. But my outward show for my favorite food had started long before that. I wrote about them in an elementary school assignment, complete with a picture of my favorite brand.

Elementary School tribute to my favorite food.

Everything I wrote then still rings true today. Pickles, store-bought or home-canned, are the perfect combination of a salty and sour, yet somehow sweet, crunch. They are always best served chilled, either right out of the fridge or from the depths of the cool pantry in the basement, though I have been known to pop open a room-temperature jar as soon as it arrives home from the grocery store. When all the pickles are gone, my Dad and I will even scoop the jar clean of its dill and garlic pieces.

As my artwork affirms, my favorite store-bought pickles are Gedney’s Baby Baby Dills, specifically the Minnesota State Fair Award-Winning Recipe of Kathy Earnest. Her recipe won the Blue Ribbon in the Gedney competition and earned her a special place in pickle history, among 11 others whose recipes have won and are sold by the Gedney company. Her picture is right on the jar’s label and I even tried my best to emulate that in my artwork.

While Gedney is one of the top pickle producers in the U.S., its products aren’t readily available out west. My family found this out the hard way when we moved out to Arizona in the summer of 1997. We tried other brands, but nothing could match the taste of Gedney and Kathy Earnest’s dill pickles. When my Dad’s parents would drive all the way down from Minnesota to stay in a friend’s vacation trailer for a season, they would bring us an entire cardboard box packed with jars of the State Fair recipe. That was such a treat. My mom would end up almost rationing the pickles to make the supply last as long as it could.

While these pickles hold a special place in my family’s stories, Gedney pickles hold a celebrated spot in Minnesota’s. Matthias Anderson Gedney had worked in various pickling companies on the east coast and eastern edge of the Midwest. In 1879, he moved to Minneapolis to try his own ideas about pickling. He helped to challenge the idea that cucumbers, a semi-tropical vine fruit, couldn’t grow in the fertile farmland of Minnesota. He and his farmers were successful and opened the first Gedney plant in Minneapolis in 1881. The company has expanded and branched out into various pickle and condiment recipes since.

I believe my family’s continued affinity for Gedney pickles is a testament to their legacy. After all, as their jingle goes, “You betcha, Gedney, it’s the Minnesota pickle!”

Down Central Avenue

My grandparents are waiting for us at the baggage claim in the airport. After piling our suitcases into their cold van, we drive off onto the long road that will lead us all the way to Lester Prairie. I read my new book until we reach the farm where Mom once skidded on the ice into the ditch. It was the age before cell phones and the nice farmer had helped her before it got too cold. When we turn on Central Avenue, I already know my way around. There is a cream-colored house with an attic story painted blue. Mom’s cousins used to live there. Then there is the Laundromat. Jonio’s—I love their pizza—and the bank are on the right. The pretty white gazebo is lit up with Christmas lights on the left in the middle of the snow-covered field. If I look hard enough, I can make out the spooky boarded up house at the far end of the field. Grandpa Larry will keep driving past Angvall Hardware and the tiny abandoned gas station with the broken window across the street from the bar. Ahead of us, I can see the curb where we sat for the summer parade. But Grandpa turns off Central before we get to it so that we cross the train tracks. With only two blocks until we get to their house, all I can think about it how much I need to use the bathroom.

My parents give the warning that we are almost into town. My brother and I power down our Game Boys as we pass the Otto’s farm. We turn onto Central Avenue and I feel a funny sadness that the drive is already over. I had been so busy playing as Mario that I had missed some of my favorite familiar sights down the country highway. But the brown brick buildings on Central are always there ready to greet us. The street is hung with its annual tinsel decorations. Jonio’s is now Scooter’s. I look to the second floor of the adjoining building. The Archery Club is unchanged. First Community Bank’s sign flashes to show the dropping temperature. Though you couldn’t tell in the snow, the railroad tracks are gone. We were here the summer the Great Northern Railroad was being dismantled. I remember it because my parents conspired and stole a few of the old rusty spike pegs and stowed them in our luggage. Imagine the TSA’s surprise and confusion when they unwrapped the bubble wrap to find the heavy pieces of metal tucked away between the dirty clothes.

It feels like summer vacation all over again as we drive once more down Central Avenue. Then I remember why we are here and I feel sad again. It is early August and we have returned for the funeral of my Great-Grandma Deloris Karels. We pass Big Don’s Carthedral and I crave the mochachino slushy the Artmanns mixed in their machine every summer—it always felt like a special service done just for me. I could really use the cheer the sweet drink brings. Further down Central Avenue past Angvall Hardware is the Central Café. Two of my cousins were waitresses in the small but very popular restaurant that serves amazing hearty brunches--my favorite kinds of meals. I could use one of those right now, too. The café is the kind of place where families gather or the older generations still meet for coffee and everyone comes out smelling like the kitchen. But what I really love about this place is the embossed tin ceiling signaling the building’s original purpose as a drugstore. Both my mom and Grandma talk about it as the place to go for a sodapop. I imagine the sunny place as its former drugstore self, serving the sodapop-sipping sweethearts with their full-skirts and slicked hair. We won’t be bringing my great-grandma out of her apartment for brunch in the café this time around. Even the spooky old house I call my own still stands, still boarded up and deteriorating in its copse of trees. I want to think it looks a little sadder on this visit just for me.

We are staying at the AmericInn in Waconia again. We take Carver County Road 30 to get into town. I could do this in my sleep. Our rental car, this time from New Jersey, turns past the Lester Prairie Medical Clinic. We pass through the warehouses that line both sides of the avenue. The bank of brown brick buildings on the right has stood for a hundred years. I recently saw a picture from 1922 of Central Avenue looking up towards North Juniper Street. The only major difference from the sepia-toned photograph and one taken today would be the old motorcar on the street. I was so sad to hear that due to an electrical fire this past year, the restaurant on this old block burned down. But just across the street in Central Square Park stands the new gazebo, a sturdier model that recently replaced the white one dating back to 1932. Though the summer grass is patchy from the hot sun, the gazebo's shade is cool and inviting. The granite monuments and flagpoles of the Lester Prairie Veteran’s Memorial are on the corner of the park.  My grandpas' names are engraved in the stone along with other LP vets. A special committee of women like my Grandma take care of the flowers that surround the memorial.

I know precisely when to look back as we turn onto Hickory Street from Central Avenue to see the perfect view of my house. In my mind, the boards melt away, the paint color returns as if brand new, and flower beds sprout in front of the windows. I liken myself to Ms. Honey in Matilda when she takes back her Victorian house from Ms. Trunchbull. I’ve imagined the place as my own home or a small historical museum. Recently, I learned that it was originally built as the Klatt Hotel in 1910 before it became what my parents remember: the Alice Haney Nursing Home and later a private residence. I add bed and breakfast to my list of possibilities as we drive further from Central Avenue towards my cousin’s house.